


Absence

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 15:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now you're just waiting. You know he's okay. But it reminds you of something that hasn't happened yet, and that part, the thought of opening up his place and packing all his things into boxes, the thought of auctioning off his piano and weeping bitter tears of loneliness, that it the part that gets to you, all through his absence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absence

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt for the kink meme for someone getting punched through time

It's been three weeks since you've seen Spades Slick.

Three long weeks. Sure, you've tried to keep yourself busy. Easier said than done, because even if crime in the city has begun to creep up in his absence, the rats coming out while the cat's away, you know all you're doing is distracting yourself.

You'd shown up to a fight that was none of your business, and now you're paying the price for it. You know he's okay. If it'd been Sawbuck or one of those other fucks you'd be freaking out, but Cans you know just makes time skip a bit. You've never been decked by him, but that's just because until now, you've taken good care not to. You're awfully fond of your ribs.

You knock on the door of his place and Diamonds Droog answers. You think he's floating through the waiting time too, because he's got this passive hopeless look to him that suggests he can't even find enjoyment at the idea of beating on you while Slick isn't there to stop him. "Alright, come in," he says, without you needing to say anything. "I was watering the plant. Lock up on the way out."

Slick's got one plant, a hideous cactus monstrosity that sits by the piano and gets spikier the more it's cared for. You have the faint suspicion Droog is hoping you'll impale yourself on it someday. But maybe, like you, he just needs something there, something to remind him that this isn't the hard part. It just feels like it.

Someday, you fear, and you know Droog fears too, you'll come to Slick's empty place and clean out his drawers, pack up his evil plant and arrange for the piano to be sold. The Felt are essentially limitless; you're gonna age fast fighting endless foes. Or maybe it'll be Slick at your office, rifling through the drawers for something to remember you by and trashing the place before Pickle Inspector gets over there to pack everything in boxes to store in his attic. You don't know. But you, you and Droog both, you know this isn't going to last forever.

It's not over yet, though. It's just that this between time reminds you, reminds you of something that hasn't happened yet.

You lock the door behind Droog and wander through the house. It's all black and white, because Slick hates colour, still wired on hate off his last job and the violet saturation of the place. No checkerboard, though. He hates that too. Lotta charcoal; you figure Droog took Slick's few needs for his home and went to work, because if it was Slick, everything would be the same black. Floor, wall, ceiling, couch. But Droog's got an understanding of aesthetic, something you know but never really internalized to be natural, and he's the kind of guy to choose a charcoal wall and an ash carpet and a pitch leather couch.

The couch is not in the best condition because after you and Slick finished chowing down cheap Chinese take-out there you usually threw each other around on it and used it as an impromptu wrestling mat. Use, you mean. Not past tense. It's not over. It'll happen again. You just don't know when.

Longest you've seen somebody gone was Boxcars, too slow, too much of a brawler to get out of the way of a full Cans roundhouse right in the chest. If not for the time thing, Boxcars would've plowed backwards like a freight train and pinned you and Slick to the ground. As it was, there was no resulting follow-through of momentum. He was just gone. Two whole months lost, and the Crew on unstable footing the whole time. Slick'd been strung-out nerves, alternately latching onto you for consolation and snapping at you like you were the one who made him disappear. Then one night when you were hanging around the club, he called from the docks and said he needed a ride home, and the Crew vanished from the lounge so fast you'd think Cans put them back in time too.

You didn't come around for awhile. The Crew cloistered up. Crew business. Despite everything, you're still not one of them. But all the same, when you brought Slick a bottle of something sharp a week later, he was all confidence and smug arrogance again, high on his Crew reunited, and you thought, that's the way you like him. Slick on top of the world.

The couch has a thin layer of dust. You stare at your handprint in it for a couple minutes before you wipe the whole thing down and leave a smudge of fuzzy gray across your sleeve, unable to stand it being there, reminding you. Not like this whole trip wasn't one big reminder.

He got decked for three days, last time, and when he came back was one of the only times he's ever been put behind bars. You got called down to the station and made bail for him out of your rent cheque money. He'd beaten bloody the first person he saw when he appeared again.

You wander into the bedroom and flop onto his bed, only made because Droog's been around. You mess it up intentionally every time you come over, falling fitfully asleep in sable sheets surrounded by the smell of copper and aniseed and using one of his many carelessly-tossed pillows as a makeshift body to hold at night. It's stupid and you don't really think about it. You just find it hard to be there if you don't have something to hold on to, when you actually pass out at last.

Your days are empty and your mind is full.

You sit down heavy on his bed and wonder if you'll be doing this for another couple months, if you're less than halfway through. You wonder if next time, you'll be packing up boxes and gritting your teeth so's not to weep bitter tears of anger and loneliness.

But you barely sit down when a door closes in the house and your heart leaps into your throat. You step into the hallway expecting to see Deuce wondering where his ride went, a frustrating misunderstanding like last time. But it isn't him. Slick stalks out of the bathroom, covered in blood and the hatched roughness of what'll be bruises when they've had time to become them. His eyes are white and wide, furious at the actions of what to him were three seconds ago and for you, were three weeks.

You can't stop the stupid smile from blossoming on your face, no more than you can stop your heart from dropping into your stomach and beating like a crazy drummer at the sight of him. He stalks up to you and growls, "What are you grinning at, smart guy?" and takes a swing at you and you don't even mind. You take it hard on the arm and know Slick's bony hands are going to leave knuckle-bruises tomorrow, but you don't care. You just want to wrap your arms around him and swing him around, something you know you'll never do but want to anyhow.

But you've got to be good to him, you've gotta help him get caught up, and you know he's going to need it, hopped up on vicious anger and violence he doesn't have a target for anymore. So even though all you want to do is wrap yourself around him and take in the smell of his skin and lose yourself in having him back again, you stand back.

"Three weeks, Slick," you say. "It's okay. We've got it covered. Work it off. Come at me." You open your arms.

He leaps for you, maybe not the way you'd like, but the way he needs, and for the next couple of minutes, you do your level best not to have the shit kicked out of you. You're going to need a couple stitches on the cut over your eye, but it'll wait. When you drop into bed beside him, when he works the fury off, you'll just put a towel on the pillow, because there's no way you're going to walk away from Slick, not when you just got him back.

Because who knows. Next time it could be you. Or it could be for good.


End file.
